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Thursday, October 2, 2014

Grinning for Poetry Friday

Jama Rattigan, at Jama's Alphabet Soup is our perfect host today, ignoring the soup, and going straight to the sweets! Go visit all the desserts shared by everyone!

I have been immersed all of September in poetry, and enjoying the writing with groups in two different worlds. Since the beginning of September, I've had the pleasure of joining Renee La Tulippe's wonderful Lyrical Language Lab, an online writing workshop with Renee, and other poets from all over the world. Renee blogs at No Water River. I still have one more week of that work to do because I also just returned home from the barn at Boyd's Mill, Pennsylvania, a Highlights Foundation Workshop, Poetry for the Delight of It with David L. Harrison. It was another marvelous time and opportunity to write with a great group. It feels good to be with those who love writing as much as I do. One additional special thing was that I got to meet and write with JoAnn Early Macken of the Teaching Authors blog. After enjoying their blog posts for a long time, it was wonderful to be with JoAnn in person!

at the Highlights Workshop - a taste of the beauty

I feel like shouting those words from Mark Strand's poem, Eating Poetry: "Ink runs from the corners of my mouth./There is no happiness like mine./I have been eating poetry." It also seems appropriate because of Jama's mouth-watering post for us this Poetry Friday, and fits the poem I want to share. I was inspired this past week, but sometimes stuck. There weren't always prompts, but one was "happy", and I wrote a few pages, attempting ideas, not finding a particular path to follow anywhere. Our last day together was Wednesday, and we shared other poems, first drafts, poems by others we loved, and so on. Finally, I got it, at least for me. I felt so happy and thought more than anything that I wished that others would find something in their lives that made them feel that way, too. Here's the poem:

What a wonderful, cleverly written, uplifting poem, Linda! I'm grinning from ear to ear. Sounds like you've been feasting big time on lots of poetic goodness and learning from some talented teachers. Was this your first Highlights workshop? (I thought you had attended one previously.)

I had a feeling that this visit to Highlights would bring you much happiness, Linda! I can imagine what fun it must have been to be a lovely place, with inspiring company, tasked to reach into your well of creativity and write. Your happy poem made me happy, my friend.

What a MARVELOUS poem, Linda. I could just eat it up! :-)And I'm jealous of both you and JoAnn, both for being able to attend the workshop and for meeting each other. I hope to meet you in person one day, too. Keep on smiling!